Welcome to the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. I'm Chris
Sosa, the copy chief here at Becker's, and
I'm thrilled to be joined by David Bickerstaff,
president of Riley Children's Health in Indianapolis.
David, thank you for joining us today.
Thank you, Chris. Thank you for having me,
and I'm excited to be here with you.
A pleasure, certainly. David, would you please introduce
yourself and let our audience who might not
be familiar with your work, let them know
a little bit more about your background, please?
Yeah. Happy to. So I'm David Biggerstaff. As
you mentioned, I serve as the president of
Riley Children's Health here as
part of IU Health. I'm based in Indianapolis.
I have been, now with Riley Children's. This
is week seven. And so I'm very much
in the orientation,
stages of this role and, couldn't be more
excited to be here. It's been, just such
a a great interview and onboarding process. And,
I'm really excited to have joined this organization
and just, you know, to learn more about
the, the foundation, what makes this such a
great organization.
Just by way of background,
I have a little bit of a unique
background in that, I actually studied accounting,
as of my undergraduate degree
and quickly realized that I didn't want to
go into accounting, and I actually went into
IT. And so, this was back in the
mid nineties when electronic medical records were just
being developed.
And so I got interested in information technology,
spent a number of years in the, EMR
field,
developing electronic medical records and decision support systems
and evidence based medicine systems.
And,
ultimately though ended up taking a little bit
of a detour and ended up in operations
and had a chance to,
run a set of ORs, to open a
new children's hospital,
and over the course of the last, fifteen
or so years have been in a couple
of children's hospitals across the country. And, through
all of that, have just been really privileged
to be able to work with just some
outstanding, clinicians, researchers, teams that just do outstanding
work in pediatric health care. And so, being
here at Riley, feels very at home, being
in a children's hospital and in an academic
center,
that does such great work.
And importantly, our children's hospitals across the country,
are the voice of children's health and the
advocates for children's health. And so it's great
to be,
in one of those organizations
that, that is the the voice of children's
health across the country.
David, just looking into your background a little
bit there. Certainly, accounting is, as you mentioned,
is not really a traditional path to where
you are now. Was there a moment or
or series of moments kind of that led
you to,
want to lead a children's health care organization?
Yeah. I think, you know, if I if
I went back through my career and and
certainly when I started out in, you know,
studying accounting and then,
I actually got interested in health care as
a result of the presidential
elections of nineteen ninety two. And and for
our listeners who remember those elections,
that was or that election, that was, health
care reform was the major topic. And so
how we were gonna solve the affordability
issue in health care was the primary topic.
And so I got interested in health care
really as a result of the public policy
debate. And that's what led me to,
a hospital in Oklahoma City where I I
started out in the IT department and and
really just a way to to get a
sense of,
you know, what health care was about and
whether or not this was an industry that
I would want to go into.
Quickly fell in love with the industry.
It would be a number of years before
I got exposure to a children's hospital
and had the opportunity to step exclusively into
pediatrics.
But once I took that step,
really pediatrics was,
just a a true love, the work that
our children's hospitals do across the country.
And again, the breadth and depth of research,
the innovations that come out of our academic
centers,
really drew me into that environment and has
been a love ever since. And so I
would say it wasn't necessarily by design, but
it was something that, once I got here,
I knew I wanted to stay in, not
only in health care, but,
more specifically in pediatrics.
Well, it sounds serendipitous to be sure. No
doubt, Raleigh Children's is happy to have you.
You mentioned you're only in week seven. So
clearly, they're you're settling in, but, obviously, you
know, easier to move forward.
Looking at our my second question for you,
David, is what are your top priorities today?
I know there's a lot out there, but
could you, narrow it down just a little
bit?
Yeah. Thanks. And I I think there's there's
two or three things that I would highlight.
And one, first and foremost, is,
building on the successes of Riley. And and
I say that from the standpoint of having
had the opportunity to go through the interview
and kind of that preboarding process,
has really been impressive to me and impressive
from the standpoint of there is so much
more to Riley than meets the eye.
As I've had the opportunity to dig into
the strength of our programs,
we have several programs,
here that are in the top 10 in
terms of clinical outcomes,
across the country.
We have a fourth that is number 11.
We have a research program that the breadth
and depth is incredibly impressive. But when you
look at the NIH funding,
our partnership with the IU School of Medicine
Department of Pediatrics,
that department is sixth in the country in
terms of NIH funding.
And so there are a number of things,
here that really made Riley an attractive
organization for me, but importantly then provide some
guidance for me in terms of what are
the priorities. And one of those priorities,
is to really understand our strengths
and develop strategies to build on those strengths.
And certainly, first and foremost of those will
be to continue,
to invest in the academic mission,
in terms of our research and teaching and
make sure that we can continue to build
on that incredible foundation that we have in
place.
The other couple of things that I would
offer is, one is building the leadership practices
that enable,
our organization to navigate change. And so as
we look forward,
we have a number of major initiatives on
the horizon,
ranging from,
implementing a new electronic medical record,
to developing a statewide network to make sure
that we can serve all children across the
state of Indiana.
And so, that's gonna require our leadership team
to think differently in terms of,
how we partner across the state,
how we integrate with the broader IU Health
system,
and importantly, how we enable our leaders,
to navigate that pace of change, more adeptly
as we go forward.
And then the final thing that I would
say is is kind of a priority for
me is really how we develop a shared
vision across all stakeholders. And,
I've I've been asked the question many times
as to what is my vision for Riley
Children's Health.
And while I certainly have goals and aspirations
for what our organization
should and could do,
I think the the establishment of a vision
for an organization
as essential as Riley is in the state,
really has to come from numerous stakeholders. And
so,
how we develop good listening sessions,
with our physician colleagues,
with the broader community to define
that vision,
is really among my top priorities. And I
think that's such an important part of an
organization like Riley Children's Health,
in terms of our role in child health
across the state. And so, so those would
be two or three things that are certainly
on my radar as I've, you know, started
through this onboarding process.
David, looking at the next eighteen months or
so, I mean, I'm certain that a lot
of what you just spoke about is going
to to come up pretty much every day.
There's no doubt about that. But as you
look forward
in your little crystal ball as far as
the health care industry concerned and your job
in particular,
how do you see your role evolving in
that of the role of your teams?
Yeah. I I think there's really two things.
And, you know, one of these won't be
new, and that is, but it is probably
more urgent,
or important today.
And that that is how we equip our
leaders to manage change. And if if you
look at where we are as an industry
right now,
you kinda have these two competing,
narratives, if you will. On the one hand,
we as an industry have been, harmed by
a pandemic. And when you look
at workforce
shortages
that were forecast
for
many years before the pandemic,
but were certainly compounded as a result of
the pandemic.
You look at the number of roles that
have transitioned to remote work, we continue to
struggle with supply and medication shortages.
And so on the one hand, there's this
desire to just have stability in the industry
and how do we return to,
some level of of consistency in the industry.
And yet, on the other hand,
we're at a point with, for example, artificial
intelligence where,
there's this enthusiasm to go do new things
and to go advance that agenda and and
figure out what the next iteration of health
care is gonna look like. And so I
think for me, one of the key things
for our leadership team here at Riley Children's
Health is equipping our leaders to really build
processes and practices,
to manage change, to engage our frontline team
members in that process and really make sure
everybody stays well informed and in sync as
to the initiatives that we pursue. And so
we're at a very interesting time in health
care,
again, in balancing this desire for stability and
and a little bit of just normalcy,
and yet this desire to also advance change
and and make improvements in the system. And
so we have to balance those two things
carefully.
The other thing that I would offer that
is unique about Riley is we are part
of IU Health, and and we have this
very large,
health care ecosystem across the state of Indiana.
And for our Riley Health leaders,
really it becomes the question of how do
we develop more systems thinking and how do
we make sure that we are
part of this broader system in terms of
how we can deliver pediatric care across the
state,
with our adult counterparts and and what that
might look like in terms of continuity of
care,
how we can leverage,
different provider types across the state, to really
make sure that Riley is serving all of
the children of Indiana.
You'll hear us say, we
believe every child deserves Riley,
and we have to deliver on that promise
in terms of access points across the state,
and that will require us to think differently
about what it means to be, part of
a system,
that has just such an incredibly strong, footprint
and presence here in the state. But we
can think differently about what that integration looks
like.
David, given the important role that you just
mentioned that Riley has throughout the entire state,
not just your immediate area, but throughout Indiana.
I have a two part question for you.
So what makes you nervous right now? And
on the other end of that spectrum, what
are you excited about?
Yeah. So I I think the thing that
I'm most excited about is the culture
of Riley Children's Health. We have just such
an incredibly,
dedicated and passionate,
set of team members. And and I say
that across all roles, whether it's our,
physician colleagues,
our nursing team.
You can go through just every role in
the organization and there is truly a dedication
to taking care of children, taking care of
the families that we serve.
And so we have this incredible culture. We
have this incredible dedication to serving the children
of Indiana,
and we have that strong foundation of excellence.
And so it's hard not to be excited
about that.
And so really the opportunity is exciting to
be able to say, how can we impact
the health status of the children we serve
and,
how do we improve that health as we
go forward? And so that's obviously an incredibly
exciting,
mission that we have here at Riley Children's
Health.
And given our our footprint in the state,
we we truly have an opportunity to impact
that health status. And so, that that's an
incredibly exciting proposition for us as we begin
our second hundred years of serving the children
in Indiana.
The thing that I would, say I'm probably
most nervous about is this desire to move
quickly,
and the desire to go solve all of
those problems,
and balancing that with the needs to be
inclusive and thoughtful in terms of what we
pursue and how we pursue that agenda. And
so,
there's this desire to to move quickly and
and yet that can all can be fraught
with problems if you're not thoughtful about how
you move and and when what steps you
take. And so, so very, very excited to
be at Riley Children's Health, very excited about
the opportunities in front of us. And yet
at the time, nervous that, we have to
be inclusive in terms of listening to our
communities,
listening to our stakeholders to make sure that
we are truly serving the needs of the
state. And so, it's that,
nervousness that is, or that excitement that needs
to be tempered with, balance in terms
of, the pace at which we go.
I would imagine balance is going to get
you an awfully long way in your position,
and hopefully that will translate to better health
for every child who's touched by Riley Children's.
David,
thank you so much for being here with
us today. We cannot wait to share all
your insights with our audience, and, hopefully, we
get to talk to you again soon.
Thank you, Chris. I appreciate the time and
would be happy to join you again.